This was the last Naked Girls Reading in Boston as the new management has decided not to renew our chapter’s license. No, we don’t really understand why.

Because of the proximity to St. Patrick’s Day, we had an Irish theme to the readings. The Naked Girls were long time reader Vikki Likkerish, Jena Kitten, the newest Naked Girl, Lady Grey, and myself, Miss Mina.

Lest we ignore one of the most famous Irish writers, Lady Grey read a short section from the end of Ulysses, a piece of stream of consciousness writing that is practically poetry.

I finished the evening with a passage from Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes on how his family lost a room in their home and were evicted for it. His writing is so good and so funny, you might forget the misery of his subject matter.

On behalf of all the Naked Girls in the 3+ years we’ve been active, thank you so much for all your support. We really enjoyed presenting these salons for you. If you think Boston deserves to keep its Naked girls Reading chapter, please write to the new managers, Elly & A.J., at nakedgirlsreading@gmail.com. Maybe with a large enough show of support we can get our license back.

A little something from one of the Naked Girls about her experience at “The Might Be Giants”:

BAR HAVOC: BARE NECESSITY
Posted on October 2, 2012 by BAR HAVOC

Public speaking has never really been my thing. I usually love to be the center of attention—I’m extroverted, outgoing, and certainly not shy. So why, when the time comes for all eyes to be on me, do I panic and wish I could melt into the floor? During my best friend’s maid of honor speech my hands were shaking so violently that I could barely read the words. “Poor girl,” I heard someone whisper, and I wanted to die.

I know that public speaking isn’t really the scariest thing in the world. I mean, you could be up there naked. Now that would be really scary. And that’s why I decided to do it.

This past Saturday night I took the stage at the Coolidge Corner Theatre with Naked Girls Reading and I bared it all for our special feature, “Short Writings Read By Tall Ladies.” I kept flashing to the wedding, my shaking hands and thought how trite that seemed now. What if I fell? Naked falling, naked coughing, naked stuttering, all hardly attractive. I had better pull it together.

The night of the show all I wanted was a glass of Jameson. Whiskey is good for the throat: It would calm my nerves and soothe my voice before I read. Then again, I was also going to be walking up to the microphone in five-inch heels. I decided Jameson wasn’t in the cards.

When the time came, my name was read aloud and I rose, carelessly tossing my robe to the floor and approaching the microphone. No shaking hands, no Elvis leg. I took a breath and found that I was smiling, and I began to read to the audience of 80. I found that what nerves I did have was from the fact that the stories I was reading were my own, things I had only shared with close friends and my pen and paper.

Now I was standing naked, reading my innermost thoughts to strangers.

It felt amazing, and I found that I was sad when it was over.

A man approached me after the show as I was putting my robe back on. “Wow,” he said, “you would have been naked reading that stuff even if you had clothes on. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Please keep writing.”

I beamed; I was so happy that someone pointed out my writing when all I probably would have said was, “boobies boobies boobies boobies.”

I walked home alone, my jeans and boots safely back where they belonged and I felt so great.

This was something I had feared for so long, and I couldn’t believe how well it went, how calm I was, and how unafraid I actually was once I just focused at the task at hand, evened my breathing and just swallowed that fear and sheer panic.

It had rained while I was inside the theatre, and the bars had closed. Luckily I knew one that was still closing up—I had one last story to tell, and there was a bottle of Jameson with my name on it.

It’s the biggest Naked Girls Reading ever! Well, the tallest, anyway. We’ve got over thirty linear feet of Naked Girls reading some of the best flash fiction ever written. Every performer is at least 5’10” tall in her bare feet! Featuring: Betty Blaize, a Boston Babydoll, known as “six feet of fun”; Karina Valkyrie from Hudson, MA, a first-time Naked Girl who stands 6’1”; Legs Malone from New York City, who at 5’11” is billed as ‘The Girl with the Thirty-Four-and-a-Half Inch Inseam’; Lizzie Havoc, a local writer and bartender who at 6’3” is the tallest of the readers; and ‘Vita Lightly’, the alter-ego of former Boston Babydoll and professional model, Sarah Hartshorne, who is 5’10”.

Tickets are $20 in advance, $30 the day of the show and are available HERE.

Our theme for this salon was books we Naked Girls enjoyed as children. Our readers were Miss Mina (myself), Fonda Feeling (the once and future Naked Girl), and Lady Grey (first time Naked Girl). Sadly Jena Kitten fell victim to the heat and was unable to join us.

We began with By Balloon to the Sahara, a Choose Your Own Adventure book. When we got to a choice, the audience voted, and the book passed to the next Naked Girl. It was an awful lot of fun and I suspect we’ll be doing it again.

Fonda Feeling read a few poems about childhood from Now We Are Six by A. A. Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh.

One of my favorite books was The House With a Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs. I fiendishly did not read a passage that explained why there was a clock in the walls of the house.

Fonda Feeling is a mere stripling compared to the rest of us and the Harry Potter books came out when she was just a kid. She read the passage from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Harry receives the Marauders’ Map.

Lady Grey read a chapter from Roald Dahl’s Matilda about how the tiny girl devours every children’s book in the library and moves on to Dickens and Hemmingway, at the age of four.

We really could not have a reading of childhood books without including Where the Wild Things Are. I’m thrilled that I got to be the one to share how Max made mischief of one kind and another.

We all read things that will stay with us our entire lives and the Naked Girls are no exception. In this month’s salon, they share the works that left an impression from childhood: sweet, funny, sad, creepy, and more. Plus we’ll be doing an interactive reading of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” with the audience! Your hostess, Mina Murray, is joined by favorite NGRs Jena Kitten and Fonda Feeling, and brand-new Naked Girl Lady Grey.

The salon will be held at the Boston Academy of Burlesque Education, 119 Braintree St., Allston, MA. at 8pm